7 Steps to Get Your Child Organized ...

One of the most important steps to get your child organized is to actually make the time to dedicate a few hours for clean up. Schedule a day in advance and make sure you and your child have 3-4 hours free for tackling the clutter and cleaning up the mess in the bedroom. To make sure you give your kid your undivided attention, I recommend you turn off all phones in the house and shut down the computer, to avoid temptations such as checking your email or what's new on Facebook and AllWomenStalk.

Remove the laundry and any dirty dishes from the room. Let your child choose what they want to help you with – the laundry or the dishes. See if the comforters need laundering too and gather any items that don't belong in your kid's bedroom, like family DVDs or any of dad's tools or your makeup kits that just happened to magically appear there (because we know that our little angels would never-ever touch our stuff - right?). Take all these items to where they actually belong.

Now that you've freed up some space, the next steps to get your child organized are to get your cleaning supplies and vacuum ready and to find some boxes to help you with the sorting. Label these boxes as follows, to make everything easier: Storage, Garbage, For Sale, and For Charity.

Begin with a small area first and deal with every little item. Does it have a designated place already or do you need to find it a home? Gather all "homeless" objects in one place (the bed would be great) and wait until the end to assign them a home. This will help you easily see what space you will need to store them. If there are any broken items or with missing pieces, toss them in the "Garbage" box. If there are things your child doesn't use anymore but are still in good working order, place them in the "Charity" box – or maybe you can sell them. Just make sure you let your child have a say in what goes and what stays. If you want to learn how to raise an organized child, you need to make this experience as "painless" as possible for them.

Now that you can actually see the floor for a change, it's time to do the actual cleaning. My advice on how to get your child organized and neat is to, again, let them choose whether they want to vacumn the floors or dust, for example. It is a lot easier to get them on board if they feel they are in control.

By now, the room should be sparkly-clean and fully de-cluttered. Now we're getting to one of the most important steps to get your child organized. Take a look around and see what containers your child might need to keep everything neat. Do they have a garbage bin? Do they need storage boxes for their video games and DVDs? Do they have enough shelves for books or toys? Take them shopping and let them help in choosing the storage items needed – this way, they will be more likely to actually use them and stay organized.

You know that old habits die hard, so it would be a good idea to check out your child's room every few days for a while. If you see it's getting cluttered again, give them friendly reminders that they need to put things back where they belong. And don't forget that positive reinforcement is a must – if they managed to stay organized, it is highly important to let them know they're doing a great job!

So many adults are plagued by being disorganized. If you raise an organized child, they will be on the front foot when it comes to college, career, running a home and raising their own kids. How organized are your kids' rooms? Work to do?